


Too Alien to Take You Home

by Omnisocks



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Altered Mental States, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possession, Possessive Behavior, Power Imbalance, Psychic Abilities, Sharing a Body, Telepathy, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:13:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29919459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omnisocks/pseuds/Omnisocks
Summary: Neku is in some nice mundane trouble, and it's Joshua to the rescue, to the misfortune of all.A dark!Josh fic.
Relationships: Kiryu "Joshua" Yoshiya/Sakuraba Neku
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10





	Too Alien to Take You Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ComposerEgg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComposerEgg/gifts).



> _"Too weird to love, too scared to die  
>  Too alien to take you home  
> Horrified at the sight of my reflection in your eyes  
> I don't belong there"_  
> \- Lyrics from _Outliars and Hyppocrates: a fun fact about apples_ by Will Wood
> 
> I've gotta slap at the second half of this some more but here's the first.
> 
> More tags will be added. Expect unpleasantness, possessive behavior, and Joshua being Not Human. Is there a tag for non-sexual non-con?

Shibuya’s Composer utters the word in the low rumble of a truck engine, the high song of a crosswalk. A cacophonous melody encased in a single syllable: “no.”

He’s settled in to watch, only minutes before, consciousness unfurled, cast wide through the streets, coiling into the shops and alleyways, savoring the flow of the ventilation systems and electrical currents, rippling through traffic and the late-night footfalls of pedestrians to at last wind tight around one particular individual.

It was how he’d come to prefer relaxing these days: meditative delight in the rhythm of Neku’s lungs taking in the city air, soaking in the radiance of his Imagination.

He’d _reeeeally_ been looking forward to it.

Admittedly, Neku’s opinion of this practice, should he be aware of it, may skew towards less than charitable. But what he isn’t aware of, he can’t complain at Joshua about. Joshua can do without the impassioned inner-and-occasionally-very-publicly-outer monologues, thank you very much. The city will continue bending and folding to accommodate him as the whim strikes. If Neku hasn’t noticed his oddly good luck, or how when he thinks of going somewhere else he can’t quite remember where that may be, well, all for the best. The Composer would know these things, after all.

When he finds Neku today, the young man is hauling ass down a side street, missing both his phone and wallet, having tackled the man who took the latter, knocking a few teeth loose and receiving a kick in the eye in return, then dropping the former chasing the thief straight into a trio of his buddies before gracefully u-turning towards less dangerous locales.

As Composer, Joshua sees them not in the way of the living or small-time dead, with their physical bodies and light based perception, but in the way of a very intelligent, somewhat clairvoyant, and presently cracklingly furious city.

Noise manifest, coalesce, trailing after Neku and his pursuers. Mindless. Hungry. The Composer follows their lead.

The men themselves were barely worth remarking on, Joshua would recall later, if he bothered at all. Barely older than Neku’s twenty years, if that, possessed of the reckless entitlement that comes with one’s own personal lexicon defining consequences as “for other people.” In his eyes, the only thing separating them from Noise was time.

He could have, and positively would have, turned a blind eye, but Neku was special.

_"How dare they,"_ he speaks into Neku’s mind.

How dare they threaten him, after Joshua had gone through all the trouble of bringing him back. When he was in the middle of gifting the city (Joshua) with an inspiring new mural, a hand embroidered offshoot of Neku’s very own imagination weaving its way into the tapestry of Joshua’s tiny world.

Neku was _his._

_"They have no right."_

Neku continues to ignore him.

But he won't for long.

There’s debris on the pavement. Trash placed out for collection by a local business scattered across the late night street into a quiet alleyway. Neku's thundering footsteps land squarely on a glass bottle, and he sprawls forward onto the concrete, the knapsack he’d carelessly slung over one shoulder flying out of reach. As he lies dazed, suspended in that brief moment between impact and pain, Joshua hooks into the lapse in Neku’s natural defenses and spares not a second more.

With the full brunt of the Composer's attention, the atmosphere shifts, and integrating himself into Neku’s being, he can feel every one of Neku’s hairs stand on end. Neku, precious, precious Neku, swears in a panic, getting his hands and knees underneath himself, as Joshua's Imagination starts coalescing in his chest.

_"Excuse my intrusion, Neku. This will only take a moment."_

“H-hey! Wait!”

Joshua erupts into his consciousness,the city seizing control of its inhabitant and jamming his connection to his body like a rogue radio wave, shorting out the surrounding electrical currents in its wake. The already dim alley goes dark, the stars choked out in a miasma of smog and car exhaust.

Neku's pursuers stumble to a halt, exclaiming, alarmed, but the Composer only focuses on drawing more power, shuttering Neku and the parts of him that could fracture away, even as Neku actively resists the takeover. Neku isn’t someone who can be held for long, not without a physical anchor (such as a pin), but it will be more than enough.

The city (or the god in charge of it, there’s little distinction to be made in this moment) stands Neku up with an implausible roll of the pavement and the neon hum of a late-night open sign, and raises his trembling arms. The four have had enough time to realize, perhaps from his expression, perhaps from the otherworldly TV-billboard glow emanating farther and farther from his body, now the single immediate light source, this may be one instance in which they aren’t the biggest dogs on the block.

They aren't given enough to realize they're too late to turn tail and run.

Neku may be strong, with his refined Soul and dazzlingly broad Imagination, but he's one overworked and overwhelmed human being against the very essence of a city incandescent with rage. It's he who opens his mouth to release the shared cry tearing out of his throat as the Composer hauls open their pact and courses approximately fifteen square kilometers worth of DO NOT TOUCH through it, using Neku as the conduit between planes to sear the immediate area in a spectacular light show.

* * *

Joshua looks around at the scorched pavement, and the four unmoving shapes lying on it. The Noise, too, have been obliterated.

He may have overdone it.

“Oh,” he says, in Neku’s somewhat hoarse voice. “Pardon me.”

Joshua isn’t, strictly speaking, proud of losing his temper. Killing people in a tactless flare of wrath isn’t exactly a trait he has adopted into his image of himself. It also isn’t his most pressing concern at the moment. His presence is noticeably threatening to incinerate Neku from the inside out due to the intense concentration of Soul compressed into a single body, much like the way a magnifying glass is capable of starting a fire when left in the sun, and he should probably get him home before any real damage is done tonight.

“What the fuck,” Neku says in his own, definitely hoarse voice.

“Yes,” Joshua agrees, still eyeing the bodies with no small amount of distaste, “the nerve of some people.”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Neku reiterates, and promptly crumples them both to the ground like a discarded marionette.

Joshua reevaluates.

Neku, clearly, is in no state to be walking himself home. If Joshua lets him go, stops feeding him power from the UG, he definitely won’t be conscious for long, as drained and frazzled as he is. If Joshua doesn’t let him go, well, judging from their current position crumpled on the pavement, it’ll be worse.

Dragging him anywhere before anyone shows up to investigate would be such a hassle. He’s also still quite naturally trying to eject Joshua, who is quickly losing ground after expending himself so much away from his home turf.

He can fix this. He can fix it. The four impending arrivals to the UG can wait until he gets Neku somewhere safe, and he has an idea that, while risky, should suffice.

If all goes well, he won’t even have to explain the incident to Sanae. The less the Angel knows about Joshua’s fondness for Neku, the less he’ll be able to leverage it against him, and the less potential danger he'll leave the young man in.

The first thing he does is tamp down Neku's rising panic and pull the plug, so to speak, making him much more manageable for his walk home. He keeps hold of their pact as he ebbs into his own shape next to Neku, flickering and distorting as he tries to remain stable in the RG while reaching back through the UG, along their pact, and back to Neku in the RG again to supply enough energy to keep him conscious and coherent.

“Poor… l’ghtning rods,” Neku croaks out.

"Well, mostly coherent," Joshua amends, patting Neku’s shoulder as he physically props him up, and oh, no, this isn't the proper consistency of a human arm. 

Hopefully no one will notice.

As long as they aren't of the UG, they won't say anything if they do. 

"Can't win them all," he chirps. "Let's bring you home."

Joshua collects Neku's possessions with some minor telekinesis and they start walking, a farce of a three-legged race.


End file.
